“And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.” (Genesis 4:1)

Recent translators have followed a tradition of including the word “from” in this verse. The original Hebrew does not have it. A stricter translation would read, “I have begotten a man, the LORD.” For Eve to have given birth to the Lord might sound strange, but it suggests that we should ask whether Eve could have believed she had given birth to the promised One.

Eve did not know that Mary actually would deliver that God-Man 58 generations later (Luke 3:23-38). Eve heard the Lord’s curse given in Genesis 3, including the promise of a woman-born Savior. God told the deceiver He would “put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15).

Who could blame Eve if she felt that her first child would be the “seed” who would defeat the deceiver and redeem us from the curse? Eve knew she needed a redeemer. After all, the Lord had told her and her husband, “For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Genesis 3:19).

Any rescue from this doom would therefore require a perfect man—one who had no sin of his own to condemn him. Only the Lord God is perfect, so He would have to become a man. Thus, “when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Galatians 4:4-5). Eve was possibly expressing trust in a saving Seed. We definitely should! BDT

Days of Praise Podcast is a podcast based on the Institute for Creation Research quarterly print devotional, Days of Praise. Start your day with devotional readings written by Dr. Henry Morris, Dr. Henry Morris III, Dr. John Morris, and others to strengthen and encourage you in your Christian faith.